Football parties are for amateurs

“Why don’t you have (your buddy) over to watch the game today?” my friend said to her husband as she stood at the stove making breakfast last Sunday. Normally, my friend and her husband watch football together on Sundays, but she had to go into the office for the day.

Her husband (we’ll call him George), looked at her sideways, raised his eyebrows and issued an emphatic “no,” explaining that watching “his” Jets, especially in the playoffs, was a personal thing. He wanted to “be crazy” on his own and not subject anyone else to his insanity (and his anger, if the Jets were to play poorly).

George is a Jets fan-atic. I’m talking crazy to the point that, the day between their wedding and their honeymoon, George and my friend (she loves football, too) hunkered down and watched Gang Green take on the Miami Dolphins (and win) while opening wedding gifts.

She gets his passion, and Sundays are a day to stay home, eat snack foods, drink beer and cheer for the Jets.

Now that Rex Ryan’s team has made it to the playoffs, my friend’s husband is even more excited than he was for regular-season games. He’d mentally prepared for last weekend’s match-up all week, counting down the minutes till Mark Sanchez (sighh) led the first drive.

I, on the other hand, understood none of it. As a non-sports fan, it seemed odd that George didn’t want the camaraderie I’ve always assumed comes with celebrating a big third-down conversion.

When I think football, I think parties. You know, the kinds that involve trays of wings and super-size pizzas and folding chairs lugged up from the basement.

Come Monday morning, I realized I was wrong — really wrong.

Chrissy Cavotta (a major Jets fan) was talking with her co-DJ, Brian Cody, on the Fly Morning Rush about how she watched the game the day before — alone — in her PJs. She had her good-luck gnome on the coffee table and stayed with her butt in the same place until the Jets pulled off a win.

Later that day, my colleague Jennifer Gish, a sports columnist, shared her own story to further prove George’s point. Several years ago, when the Giants were in the Super Bowl, Jenn’s husband asked her who she’d like to have over to watch the game. Her response: “No one. This is my Super Bowl, and I don’t want to be bothered.”

Her reasoning was that her friends might ask her what was in her guacamole while she was trying to watch Kerry Collins on the field. She still has that don’t-bother-me attitude, but since Collins left for Tennessee, it has been transferred only to Penn State games (her alma mater).

When I blogged about being perplexed, 100 percent of the respondents sided with Jenn and George. Unlike me, they all “got it.”

Jenn elaborated on George’s argument that sports-watching is personal, adding that you feel so much a part of the team and so invested in the outcome and the performance that you genuinely believe being able to concentrate on the action has some bearing on the game. Plus, you want to see every second, she explained, especially when it comes to the playoffs. You’ve been anticipating this moment for 16 weeks and it doesn’t come around for a lot of teams every year.

To put it in layman’s terms (aka, “Kristi-speak”), having someone around who’s distracting you during a pivotal game in your team’s season is like having someone talking to me during the series finale of “Parenthood” or “Private Practice.”

I am invited to a Super Bowl party every year. Yesterday that friend asked me why I never come to the party. I told her that I can’t watch the Super Bowl at anyone’s house but my own. I get really comfortable on the couch and that is where I stay till the end (maybe opening the door once for my pizza to be delivered)!! I can not concentrate on the game with other people around and don’t care to be in a room with people routing for the other team. It is not just when my team makes it into the Super Bowl it is every Super Bowl. I like to yell at the TV in the privacy of my own home.

Couldn’t agree more. Except I don’t watch football – but don’t miss a Yankee game. Can’t even stand my kids around any more – I always end up saying “Are you going to talk through the whole game?” Of course if Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are any where near a microphone, I have to mute it.

Sanchez looks like he is holding and kissing an imaginary girl in that posted photo. They looked very unexperienced in last nights game. Plays should have been called and set quicker in the second half. Wasted a lot of time on the clock running off the field looking for coaching and plays to run. Jets should of had that game won. Better luck next time. Nature of the game – a winner and a loser.

I’m weird too then, because I don’t like ANYONE around me when I watch my Lions. But hey I’m a Lions fan so you know I’m weird right off the bat. But I don’t even like anyone downstairs, on the same level of the house as me. Some of us like to act like idiots when watching our team and we like to do it without embarrassment :))

I vowed to watch this game alone, but ended up visiting a friend for the weekend and my only hope of catching the game was at her cousin’s (a Jets fan) place. By the second half, I was the only one in the living room cheering and all the Jets fans were in the kitchen (drinking heavily).